INTRODUCTION

ONE OF THE great
classics of earlier anthropology is a five-volume treatise, The
Physical History of Mankind, by James Prichard. Though seldom
quoted now it is a mine of information, and it is characterized
by evidences of wide reading and breadth of comprehension that
are so lacking in these days of extreme specialization. Unlike
modern authors, Prichard gave some attention to the question
of longevity and its possible relevance in the study of the history
of culture.
The indifference of anthropologists
today in this matter is surprising for several reasons. In the
first place, biologists are showing increasing interest in the
subject, because research has indicated that natural death is
probably not a characteristic of functioning protoplasm per
se. The question is why living organisms die at all, and
whether it may not be possible (if it should prove desirable)
to extend human life for centuries. The study of aging, now recognized
as a field in its own right and classified as Gerontology, is
however not merely a question of adding years to life but also
of adding life to years. And this raises some interesting possibilities
in the matter of possible effects this might have upon cumulative
experience and the possible effects this might have on the acceleration
of historical processes and the development of both the desirable
and undesirable characteristics of civilization. The good that
some men might do when given a longer life, would also be balanced
against the evil that other men might do in the same circumstances.
It is therefore a cultural as well as a biological matter, and
should be of some concern to anthropologists and sociologists.
What will be the cultural consequences of any marked extension
of human longevity? Do we have any light on the subject from
past history to guide our thinking?

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In
the second place, ancient traditions have been receiving some
remarkable confirmations from archaeology. One need only mention
Homer and the cities of Troy and Knossos to illustrate this.
Heinrich Schliemann and Sir Arthur Evans, to say nothing of a
host of men who have excavated sites in the more ancient centres
of civilization in Sumer and the Indus Valley, have substantiated
much in Greek, Babylonian, and Aryan traditions which was thought
to be pure fancy. The records of antiquity have proved to be
remarkably dependable even where it has often seemed most unlikely
that they could be. This has consistently been the case with
the early records of the Bible, wherever it has been possible
to test them. If these traditions can now be treated with sufficient
respect to inspire men of good judgment to invest considerable
sums of money for their investigation, ought we not perhaps to
pay some attention to those features of these same traditions
which, while not actually verifiable in the same way, are clearly
a part of the same oral or literary heritage? Ancient tradition
is almost unanimous in attributing great longevity to the men
of earliest times. Granted that there is gross exaggeration (assuming
that we are reading them rightly), may there not be a kernel
of historical fact underlying them, as there has proved to be
behind the other elements of these same traditions?
In the third place, there is evidence
that civilization developed with extreme rapidity in its initial
stages, as though men had more energy than we have today, and
found workable solutions to basic problems almost at once. Early
Middle East civilizations seem to spring into view "ready
made." Suppose for the sake of argument that men did live
for centuries; would we not expect to find just this, for the
cumulative experience of each individual over such greatly extended
periods of time would compound knowledge in a way that is quite
impossible now. Interpretations of early cultural history might
need to be seriously modified. Certainly the biblical record
implies this, for if we allow the record to speak for itself,
within a few generations, five or six at the most, almost all
the arts and sciences basic to city life were founded and flourishing,
including metallurgy and the bifurcation of society into rural
and urban communities.
What then are the objections which
render the subject so improper in scientific circles? Perhaps
there are three chief objections:

1. There could be little or no evidence to
demonstrate that men have lived for hundreds of years, except
for the records of antiquity. And these records are challenged
as pure fiction.

2. As far back as analysis of skeletal remains
has been undertaken by anthropologists with this specifically
in view, the evidence seems to show that human life was if anything
shorter than it
now is.

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3.
It is supported by the Bible, which for many reasons makes it
suspect at once in the minds of many people.

But we have
three good reasons for looking into the subject in all seriousness,
namely, its biological interest, the nature and unanimity of
ancient traditions, and the witness of archaeology to the speed
with which the earliest cultures developed in the Middle East.
And we have to recognize three kinds of objections, namely, the
absurd claims made by some of the ancient traditions, the absence
of any evidence for great longevity from fossil remains, and
prejudice against the biblical record.
This Paper is an attempt to examine
the evidence, the argument being that men probably did live for
centuries at the very beginning, that their life span dropped
steadily for reasons which were possibly genetic, that there
is a simple and reasonable way in which the absurdities of some
ancient traditions may be explained so that they contribute useful
information, that those records from antiquity which can be evaluated
by modern statistical methods show every evidence of being factual,
that there is no biological reason for doubting that men might
have lived for centuries at one time -- or might survive for
centuries in time to come, and that some light is hereby thrown
upon the sudden appearance of high cultures in many parts of
the world within a very short time of one another so that the
total chronology may well have been considerably shorter than
is generally assumed.